


Hello, I'm Your Mind

by BetsyByron



Series: It Is The Cause, My Soul [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Alternate Universe - School, Chess, Confessions, Crossover, First Kiss, Gryffindor, Hogwarts, Hogwarts Fourth Year, Hogwarts Second Year, Hogwarts Third Year, Legilimency, Love Confessions, M/M, Occlumency, Ravenclaw, Room of Requirement, Schoolboys, Slytherin, Teen Romance, Teenagers, Underage Kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-30
Updated: 2014-11-30
Packaged: 2018-02-27 14:10:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2695895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BetsyByron/pseuds/BetsyByron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set in Charles and Erik's fourth year. Discoveries and confessions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hello, I'm Your Mind

Raven had come over to the Ravenclaw table to look for Charles, but she stopped mid-quest upon seeing Hank’s glum face.

“You look like you’ve just been told there were no more books.” She quipped. “What is wrong with you?”

Hank looked up nervously. He had always been intimidated by Raven, although she was his best friend’s younger sister by two years. Maybe it owed to the fact that she was a Gryffindor, whom Hank always said were just _fierce_ , and had made Chaser in the Quidditch team although she was only in her second year. Rumours were that Guinevere Hemans, the current captain, was pitching for Raven to take her place at the end of her current, seventh and last year at Hogwarts. Hank wasn’t sure a third year had ever captained a team before.

“Charles got called to Shaw’s office.” Hank informed her.

“What?!” Raven cried, loud enough that a few Slytherins turned over on their bench behind them. “What are you looking at, Lehnsherr?” She snapped at one of them. The boy returned to his lunch, and Raven sat down next to Hank. “Spill.” She ordered.

Charles had been a top student ever since he’d set foot in Hogwarts three and a half years back, and even if he hadn’t been, Headmaster Sebastian Shaw hardly ever meddled in student affairs, leaving it to Sybil Trelawney, his Deputy Headmistress, to oversee school discipline. She wasn’t what you’d call awe-inspiring herself, but just knowing that Shaw was the next person to be called if she couldn’t handle a case usually was enough to keep troublemakers in tow. At any rate, being called to the Headmaster’s office was a big deal; in the eighteen months she’d already spent at Hogwarts, Raven could only recall two instances: the Mysterious Case of Mallory Grintesel, who had now left the school, expelled two months before the end of her seventh year for reasons nobody had ever found out, and the Infamous Incident with the Summers, only earlier this very year, when Alex and his freshly sorted younger brother Scott had had a mighty fight and almost destroyed the Gryffindor common room in the process, other students screaming and crouching behind armchairs to avoid the red beams of the spells the brothers were throwing at each other. The walls were still bearing the evidence, too badly singed to fix in some places, and both boys had been forbidden to use any kind of magic outside coursework for two months.

“We were in Transfiguration.” Hank started explaining. Although he was only a third year, having received his Hogwarts letter at the same age as everyone else, his exceptional intellect had earned him the special permission to attend some of the fourth year classes; he had been doing that the previous year as well, which was how Charles and him had become fast friends. “We were in Transfiguration, and Professor Ollivander was reading our papers while we were practicing switching objects from across the classroom, when he suddenly almost swore out loud-”

“Almost?” Raven interrupted.

“Yeah, I mean, he stopped himself at ‘What the’ and then gaped.” Hank specified. “Then he called Charles up to his desk, showed him something on his paper – I couldn’t hear what they were talking about. And then he dismissed us all early and told Charles he was taking him to the Headmaster. We weren’t in the next class together but I don’t think he went.”

“Have you been worrying this whole time then? I’m sorry about that.”

Both Raven and Hank jumped at the sudden intrusion; Charles had sneaked up right behind them.

“Charles, you stupid-” Raven started, but Hank had sprung up, an anguished look on his face.

“Are you in trouble?” He asked urgently.

A few of the other Ravenclaws looked up, and some of the Slytherins turned again, Cain Marko among them, always eager to find out if someone was in trouble so he could laugh at them. Charles was one of his favourite targets ever since his father had married Charles’s mother the previous year. Charles hadn’t forgiven her yet.

“No.” Charles answered firmly for their audience, trying to convey in a look to Hank and Raven that he would explain later. “Sorry guys, I have to see if I can get someone’s notes from History of Magic and apologize to Professor Binns for missing the class. I’ll see you at dinner, yeah?”

He dashed before they could argue, grabbing an apple and a cheesy bread roll at the end of the table on his way out of the Great Hall.

 

**

 

Charles’s errands took him about ten minutes all in all, Professor Binns not caring much who was present in his class or not, since he was still calling everyone by the names of the students he had back when he was alive, as an older Ravenclaw girl had found out after going through the school’s records one day, when a first year had panicked about the old History teacher not remembering her name and insisting on calling her ‘Miss Poppiflore’ when she was called Patterson.

“Very well, Mr Sullivan, very well.” The ghost had waved Charles away from the staff room, preparing to nap in the very armchair he’d died in. “I’m sure you’ll catch up.”

Charles had then caught Lucy Selig, one of his classmates, in the corridor, who had very readily accepted to lend him her notes from the lecture.

“It was actually an interesting one.” She told him. “Though Binns is always very cranky when he has to teach us anything that happened after his death, but it’s not like he has a choice… Anyway, we talked about the Triwizard Tournament and he reluctantly told us about 1994. It is _so_ interesting, I can’t even begin to imagine – it was just before the war, you know, right back when – I was wondering if it would be insensitive to ask Albus about it? Since his dad was in it, you know.”

“I’m not sure.” Charles gave her a tense smile. He usually loved how excited she got about lessons, and got excited right along with her, but he had other plans before he had to go back for his afternoon classes. “I have to go, I’ll see you in the common room later. Thanks for the notes!”

He ran the other way, towards the Room of Requirement. Students weren’t supposed to know where it was, let alone use it as a meeting point, but although most teachers pretended this wasn’t case, a lot of students had a mother or father (or both) who had been in Dumbledore’s Army a bit over twenty years ago and who told them all about it; those kids then had told their friends, who’d told their friends (Charles himself had heard from Lucy who’d heard from a Gryffindor girl who was friend with another girl named Kin who was a year older and whose mother, Cho Chang, had been a DA member) – all in all, pretty much half the school treated the Room as any other accessible location, to meet up in large or small groups for any sort of activities. It was the beauty of the Room of Requirement; there could be a hundred of people using it at the same time, they’d all be in different places and you’d have all the privacy you wanted.

Privacy was exactly what Charles was looking for when he met Erik, in a cosy little room only big enough for two comfy armchairs and a chess set. They played Wizard’s Chess sometimes, but had both grown up learning the plainer Muggle version, and it was usually the one they favoured, like today. The board was ready, and two cups of tea steaming on each side, fresh from the kettle. Erik was sprawled in one of the chairs, his green and silver tie loosened, looking impatient.

“Sorry I’m late!” Charles apologized immediately.

“It’s okay.” Erik was sitting up, looking vaguely concerned. “Heard you had to go and see Shaw?”

“Oh.” Charles’s face fell a little. “Yes. I’ll have to take extra lessons for… something.” He nibbled on his lip, trying to look away from Erik’s questioning eyes. “I’m not really supposed to say, but… apparently I’m a Legilimens?”

Erik quirked a brow. He was as Muggle-born as Charles was, and lacked the additional magical knowledge Charles was getting through all the books he perused.

“What’s that?” He asked.

“The ability to read minds.” Charles confessed. “Well, it’s more complicated than that, but…”

“You can read minds?” Erik cut in.

“Not really, I’m not skilled enough yet.” Charles shook his head. “But that’s the thing, I shouldn’t be skilled at all. Apparently it’s a very, very difficult form of magic, and there’s only a handful of wizards who master the full extent of the art. Not all good wizards.” He added grimly. “The best Legilimens in history, allegedly, was Voldemort.”

The name didn’t cause the same dread as it used to, although quite a few students whose parents had lived through that time still did not speak it. Having not grown in wizarding families, it bothered neither Charles nor Erik. Still, knowing full well the history behind the character, Erik’s frown deepened.

“So is that a bad thing?” He asked.

“Not if I don’t use it with bad intentions.” Charles said. “Hence the extra lessons. Shaw said that, extremely rarely, young wizards showed a natural ability for Legilimency, and it could be dangerous at such a young age without the proper training. Like when I accidentally picked up some very good ideas from my Transfiguration paper directly out of Professor Ollivander’s head, as it turned out.”

“What?!” Erik yelped.

Charles winced. “I didn’t do it on purpose. I thought I was inspired. Anyhow, Headmaster Shaw says I need to be trained to control it. I’ll be joining a seventh year he’s already coaching – said he’d never thought he’d see two natural Legilimens together in his time! But we can help each other. She’s in your house, I think, Emma Frost?”

Erik’s face expressed very clearly what he thought of her.

“Don’t get too friendly with Emma.” He warned. “She’s always up to something. Figures, if she can actually enter anyone’s mind.”

He shuddered.

“There are ways to shield it.” Charles announced reassuringly. “Occlumency. I can teach you when I’ve learned, if you like.”

“I think I’d like that.” Erik confessed. “Thank you.”

They exchanged a smile, and Charles had to look down to hide a blush, his heart beating a little faster, as it did every time Erik smiled at him lately. He had met Erik in second year, and he had been a little in love with him since the beginning. It was only getting worse with time, although they were officially just friends – well, officially, between the two of them. They didn’t really hang out together in public, if only because Raven would never get off Charles’s back for befriending a Slytherin. Of course the house’s reputation had improved, but the Gryffindor in her couldn’t shake a millennia of rivalry that easily, and she distrusted them intensely on principle, no matter how many times Charles had told her she couldn’t judge an entire house based solely on the dark history of _some_ of its past members or, as a matter of fact, on Cain Marko.

“We don’t really have enough time left for a game.” Charles nodded apologetically at the board.

“No.” Erik confirmed after checking the time. His mind seemed elsewhere.

“Are you okay?” Charles asked with concern. “If this is about Emma, please don’t tell anyone, I don’t think we’re supposed to know and…”

“It’s not about Emma.” Erik interrupted him. “Although it does give me the creep. No, this is about you.”

Charles’s jaw dropped in anguish.

“Because I’m…” He swallowed hard. He had never thought Erik wouldn’t be understanding about this.

“It’s just.” Erik sighed, rubbing his hands together in embarrassment. “There are some things I don’t want you picking from my mind before I have a chance to tell you.” Charles looked even more crestfallen, which Erik realized, and he clenched his hands into fists. “I’m not saying you’re going to do that.” He said quickly. “It’s just making me think I should tell you things. Like, now.”

He then stared at Charles, staying perfectly silent. For a long moment, not another word came out of his mouth, while Charles looked at him expectantly, and still a little anxiously.

“Oh, fuck.” He eventually let out, hiding his face into his hands. “Don’t look at me with those eyes or I’ll make a bigger fool of myself than I am currently already doing.”

“It’s okay.” Charles said softly. “You don’t have to say anything.”

Erik looked up, a hopeful look in his eyes, which disappeared when he saw the hurt on Charles’s face.

Charles understood, he really did, that Erik didn’t want to be his friend anymore with this Legilimency business. Who wanted a person around who could snoop directly into your thoughts. But they had gotten along for two years, and Erik was a decent enough person that expressing the need for a break was difficult to get out of his chest. Charles understood perfectly, and if he was making Erik uncomfortable, then he would let him off the hook.

“I have Divination.” He said next, feeling hollow and unfocused. “I’ll… see you.” He added unconvincingly.

“Charles, what-”

“It’s okay.” Charles repeated. “I can only promise I’ll never get into your head on purpose, and I’ll work hard to control it. Maybe if later you feel more comfortable again…”

“What are you talking about?” Erik frowned furiously. “Charles, I’m not about to tell you I don’t want to see you anymore, I was going to bloody confess!”

Charles blinked, feeling exactly like someone had suddenly removed earplugs he hadn’t been aware he was wearing, the world snapping into clarity again.

“Confess?” He repeated. “Confess what?” He asked stupidly.

“That I like you, you big idiot.” Erik said fondly, although in a very Erikly way, still a little angrily. “I like you.” He repeated move levelly. “And I want to be more than friends if that’s something you want too.”

Charles knew he was gaping, his mouth hanging open, but he couldn’t think of anything to say. More than friends. Charles had turned fourteen a month ago, so of course he had thought about _more than friends_ before, but never would he ever have thought Erik could return the feeling.

Now it was Erik’s turn to look discouraged.

“It’s too soon.” He said fatally. “I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have… I know I can’t take it back, and I don’t want to, but if you want to pretend I didn’t say anything while you process it, I’m cool with that.”

“Are you kidding me?” Charles suddenly laughed. “I thought you were going to… I thought you were upset and instead you tell me this and you want me to pretend I didn’t hear it? Like hell.”

And he climbed on Erik’s lap, still sitting in the armchair, and he kissed him within an inch of his life.

 

Next time they met in the Room of Requirement, there was a bed in the corner. They both laughed nervously at it, and set up the chessboard as usual. They had all the time in the world.

**Author's Note:**

> If this gets another chapter, I don't think it'll stay General Audiences... ^o^


End file.
